User talk:Timrollpickering/Action Force continuity
Comics The Action Force continuity is, to put it mildly, a ******* mess. Whereas most other iterations of of G.I. Joe are reasonably consistent with only a few differences due to different mediums, Action Force contains far more contradictions. This is because: * The toyline evolved from an entirely original creation to one that reused A Real American Hero moulds to a renamed import to one using the same name. A lot of the fiction has not always handled the changes too well. * When a straight import the toyline in the UK was running about one to two years behind the US. However some toys were released early and others late, or not at all, and correspondingly they sometimes appeared in fiction "out of sequence" relative to the US. * The Marvel UK weekly series is not a continuation of the IPC series. * The Marvel weekly comic ran reprints of G.I. Joe A Real American Hero but sometimes ran them out of order, resulting in characters appearing early. This was particularly notable with the G.I. Joe: Special Missions reprints. * For the UK reprints some pages and panels were relettered to ensure a better flow of continuity with both the new order and the UK originated stories. * The originated stories in the UK in turn often tie in with the US material and sometimes supplanted non-reprinted stories by providing alternate events to set things up. (e.g. Scarlett's capture in advance of the reprint of "Silent Interlude".) * After the weekly title folded reprints were run in both Transformers and The Incredible Hulk Presents. However these were not always relettered (beyond changing "G.I. Joe" to "Action Force") and so some of the original US continuity, particularly the first appearance of characters already seen in the UK, leaked through. * The reprints in the Marvel Annuals were also often running ahead of the weekly reprints, again featuring characters and situations before they had been set up in the regular comics. (For instance the Action Force Annual 1990 came out in late 1989 and reprints a story about the rivalry on Cobra Island between Fred VII and Serpentor when it was several months before Fred arrived there in the weekly reprints.) * The originated stories in both the Annuals and Action Force Monthly similarly did not always match up with the status quo in the regular reprints at the time or indeed at all. (For example the G.I. Joe the Action Force Annual 1991 features Storm Shadow in his black & white outfit as a loyal member of Cobra when he had defected some years ealier and would not return until long after the Marvel UK printings stopped.) * The name change from Action Force to G.I. Joe the Action Force was explained in a mini-comic produced by Marvel UK as being the result of a European team called "Action Force" and a separate American team called "G.I. Joe" merging. However all previous Marvel material had treated the two as branches of a single organisation called "Action Force". * The name change was almost rigidly applied to all material printed from late December 1989 onwards but some stories reprinted earlier but set later use the original "Action Force" name, making them harder to fit. For the Joepedia the most obvious problem is how to handle the relevant sections on character biographies. Reproducing every single event in the US comics would be messy, but leaving them out and only covering originated strips would create holes in the continuity. Determining an arbitrary cut-off point would be hard. And working out where to place stories originated or reprinted in the Annuals is also not the easiest. Timrollpickering 12:16, 6 August 2008 (UTC) Cartoon The Sunbow cartoon is much easier as it covers a far shorter period. For the UK it was just given a new title sequence and some minor redubbing to change "G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero" into "Action Force: International Heroes", and "Yo Joe!" into "Full Force!" There is one story in Action Force Monthly 6 that serves as a prequel to Action Force: The Movie that may slot in there as well - it doesn't fit any Action Force or G.I. Joe comics continuity at all. (And I'm not sure if the UK ever got the DIC cartoon.) Timrollpickering 12:16, 6 August 2008 (UTC) Other bits and bobs Whilst the US 12 inch G.I. Joe figures have been incoporated into RAH continuity, I'm not aware of any explicit attempt in fiction to tie Action Force to the Action Man 12 inch line. The Action Man toyline has had at least three very distinct incarnations, one of which was a licence of the 12 inch G.I. Joe which contributed somewhat to that line's development, the second was a direct renamed import of the Hall of Fame 12 inch Real American Hero characters (but using the "Action Man" name still) and the third something totally unique. Timrollpickering 12:16, 6 August 2008 (UTC)